Names and Dreams of Futures Past
by Kitty September
Summary: Draco gets hit with a de-aging curse over Christmas, and Harry has to look after him. Introspection ensues.


"I don't believe you," snapped Draco. He didn't yell; Malfoys didn't yell unless they really absolutely had to.

He glared at the man who did, admittedly, look a lot like a slightly older and much better dressed version of Harry Potter. He even had the scar, just visible below a stylish and undoubtedly expensive haircut.

"You don't have to believe me," sighed pseudo-Potter. "You just have to stay here and keep out of trouble for a few days until St Mungo's can get you back to normal. Is that so much to ask?"

"Yes," said Draco, sounding petulant even to himself. He folded his arms over his chest defensively.

Pseudo-Potter sighed and gave the drinks cabinet a longing look. Draco couldn't blame him: it was very well-stocked. Even at sixteen, Draco's eye for good booze was well-trained.

"Please," pseudo-Potter tried. He sounded so tired Draco almost felt sorry for him.

Definitely not actual Potter. Actual Potter wouldn't say please to Draco if his life depended on it. Not in a million years. No matter who won the war or how much time passed, there was no way in the world that Potter would ever say please to Draco. At least, not outside Draco's mind. Maybe that was what this was – some kind of surreal hallucination brought on by too much stress? This had been the most stressful summer of his life, and it had barely started. He had gone to bed and, up until a moment ago, it had been his sixteenth birthday. His father was in jail. And tomorrow the Dark Lord was coming to his house to brand him. He couldn't help but shudder.

' _Maybe it's a test_ ,' whispered a scared corner of Draco's mind. Draco found it in himself to doubt it, but fear still coursed through him. This wasn't the Dark Lord's kind of creativity. Someone else's, maybe.

Draco turned away from pseudo-Potter and took a turn about the room, mostly to see what the potentially fictional man would do. He recognised the room, he realised as he walked, but couldn't quite place it. It was a large parlour, decorated for Christmas, which didn't make sense given that his birthday was in June. Then again, none of this made sense anyway – why should the decor?

The Black family townhouse, he realised, as his fingers traced the words' _Toujours Pur_ ' carved into the dark wooden mantelpiece. He had been there many times as a child, but hadn't even thought of the place in years. Which was odd, come to think of it. Mother had always intended to go to court for it and claim it as his rightful inheritance after Aunty Walburga passed on and the erstwhile heir was rotting in Azkaban. Yet, at some point in the last few years, all of them had forgotten about it. Not just forgotten about the fight, but the house itself. As if it had never existed. Which in itself happened all the time – there were so many things that went unspoken in an old pure-blood family – but this had been different. More abrupt. He hadn't just stopped speaking of it, he really had forgotten it. Like magic.

"Where are we?" Draco asked, a test and an obvious one at that. He would start small. He kept his back to pseudo-Potter, his gaze fixed on the decorated mantelpiece. There was shimmering wizarding tinsel strung along it, candles atop it, and five empty stockings hung from it. Overkill. His mother prefered a more natural style in the Manor. But the colours were tasteful, at least. Not that Draco knew why he cared about someone else's decorations.

"Home," said pseudo-Potter, from just behind him. Draco startled despite himself. He hadn't realised how close the man had come. Pseudo-Potter's voice was familiar despite its warmth; a timbre so rich that Draco thought he might drown in it.

The two stockings closest to Draco were of normal size and simple in design. One had an 'HMP' on it, and the other a curlicued 'DPM'. The mismatched initials made Draco frown. These were obviously stockings for adults who did not expect an abundance of gifts but played along for someone else's sake. They were both cream and gold, their deep green trim the only real concession to the Christmas season.

On the other side of the fireplace hung three larger and more expectant stockings. These stockings clashed with everything around them, as if they had been made by someone who either didn't know, or didn't care, about the gold and cream colour scheme for the Christmas decorations, nor the tasteful summer pastels of the rest of the room.

Draco tried to take a step closer but pseudo-Potter's hand on his elbow caught him off guard and stopped him. He turned to glare at the man and found himself captured in his green-eyed gaze. He shouldn't let a stranger look into his eyes like that, shouldn't allow a potential enemy to get that close. He didn't feel any trace of Legilimency, though. It was just the colour and the concern he saw there that held him back.

"You might not like what you find," pseudo-Potter warned him. "But I suppose you'll have to find out at some point."

Pseudo-Potter dropped Draco's arm, letting him go and leaving him cold. He smelled familiar, too, like cut grass and warm skin and hopeless desire. Draco pulled back, not trusting either of them.

"Who are you?" Draco asked, leaving the mystery of the stockings for now in favour of another, more pressing one.

"I told you," pseudo-Potter said. "I'm Harry Potter, it's 2016 and you've been cursed. De-aged by something at work. We've sent an owl to your mother, but you have to trust me. Just for a while."

"If you're really Potter," Draco said, holding desperately to his disdain, "why would you help me? Why would you even be speaking to me?"

He realised it was the wrong tactic when pseudo-Potter's eyes widened in surprise.

"You really didn't think you'd win, did you? You're not surprised I'm alive, you're surprised I'm with you?"

Draco turned away and rubbed his left arm reflexively, comforting himself that it was still clean, that he was still safe. For now.

"Potter hates me," said Draco, ignoring the rest and looking at the fire to avoid pseudo-Potter's gaze.

"I don't hate you." He sounded fed up, more familiar than the softer tones he'd been using prior. Something eased in Draco's chest; this he could manage. "I never hated you, I don't think," Potter continued, unperturbed by Draco's avoidance. "We're … friends."

There was more to it, something he wasn't telling, and the longer Draco looked around the room the more he suspected. And that couldn't be right. This had to be a dream or a hallucination. Something unreal. Something made up to hurt him.

The children's stockings were large and well-loved. The colours clashed and they had names picked out in increasingly poor cross stitch: ' _James Hyperion Malfoy-Potter_ ', ' _Scorpius Severus Potter-Malfoy Black_ , Draco had always been fond of the Scorpius constellation, and ' _Lily Luna Potter-Malfoy_ '.

Draco blinked. "Why are the names different?" he asked, before he could stop himself.

"Your idea." Potter shrugged. "You said we couldn't let the names die. You said names have power. They're with Astoria and Ginny. James is only a little bit younger than you are now. I thought it would confuse them."

Draco was caught on the wistful air of genuine affection. It hurt.

He threw himself into one of the wing-backed chairs, sinking into straw-satin upholstery that smelled strangely like home. There was fur on the sofa opposite him. They had a Crup – of course they did.

"I want to wake up," said Draco, more plaintively than he'd intended.

Potter fell to his knees in front of Draco's chair and grabbed his hand in an outlandish display of affection that made Draco want to scream at the indignity of it all. This whole fantasy was something Draco buried deep inside him, and someone had dragged it out into the light and made it almost real. It wasn't fair. This was what his life was meant to be like and never would be. It wasn't fair. Draco's life was meant to be brilliant, not broken.

"I am so sorry, Draco." Potter's voice wove through his panic and Draco stared at him, like he was the one going mad, not Draco. "I know this isn't time-travel. I know you're stuck in there and you'll be back and it won't help. And, Merlin, you're never going to let me live this down, but I love you. Even at sixteen I loved you, I didn't know it but I did. We're going to hurt each other so much, but I'll save you. I always do. It'll be too late, but I'll try. Okay?"

"Okay?" Draco didn't know what he was agreeing to; didn't understand any of it apart from the tone.

 **~o~**

Draco woke up alone on Christmas morning. His memory was hazy and the Dark Mark on his arm hurt for the first time in years. He took several deep breaths. He did not panic. He would not panic.

"Harry?" he called, cautious and unsteady.

Harry burst through the bedroom door like a Hippogriff in heat—the spare room, Draco noted.

"Thank Godric, you're okay?" Harry pounced on him like he hadn't in years. Desperate rather than playful, clinging to Draco's chest like he might try escape.

"Yes, I'm fine. What's wrong with you, Potter?" Draco asked, indulgent despite himself.

"You don't remember?"

"I had a very strange dream," Draco admitted reluctantly. When he spoke the words he realised that it may have been more than a dream.

"It wasn't a dream," Harry confirmed. "I had no idea how _young_ we were…"

Harry cut himself off by kissing Draco. A strange kiss, somehow both hard and new, yet soft and familiar, all at once. Ocean deep and magically real. They were both better like this; better at speaking with their bodies than their words.

Draco thought he understood. He kissed back and hoped it told Harry how good he felt to be home.


End file.
